Writers on the Rise

By Gregory A. Kompes

Teaching online is the perfect way to help others and increase your income. One of the great advantages of teaching online is that you can do it from anywhere, whether you’re in your office or traveling on assignment.

If you want to offer courses through an accredited institution, they’ll probably require an advanced degree or teaching certification. If this is a direction you’d like to explore, check out Make Money Teaching Online by Danielle Babb and Jim Mirabella (Wiley 2007).

If you offer courses privately you need to be a topic expert with a desire to teach. As you develop a niche writing market, you’re also expanding your topic expertise. Just as you turn that knowledge into a workshop or seminar, you can use your experience and materials to create an online course.

The three basic types of online courses to consider offering are self-paced, correspondence, and interactive.

Self-paced courses allow learners to travel through a series of lectures and other course topic information at their own pace. Materials for these types of online courses might include written word, pictures, sound, and video. An excellent tool for building self-paced courses is Camtasia (http://www.techsmith.com). There usually aren’t assignments in self-paced courses, but quizzes and tests–which can be immediately graded by the software you’re using–are common.

Correspondence courses have been around even longer than mail delivery services. Learners and instructors are able to interact with each other via email and phone. Correspondence courses often have set start and end dates and include assignments and teacher critiques along with the learning materials. You might already be familiar with Christina Katz’s online courses (http://www.writersontherise.com/classes.html) offered and delivered using these methods.

From continuing education to advanced degrees, interactive online learning is a recent trend in online learning, especially for adult learners. While every offering is different, most interactive courses are provided through a Course Management System (CMS). Some of the more popular are BlackBoard, ATutor, and Moodle. Interactive online classes have set start and end dates and the courses are highly interactive, with discussions and assignments posted within the classroom setting. Learners and facilitators all interact within the online classroom and not only learn from the materials presented, but also from each other in the online discussions.

To learn more about all aspects of online teaching, I recommend The Handbook of Online Learning edited by Kjell Erik Rudestam and Judith Schoenholtz (Sage Publications 2002).

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Gregory A. Kompes, author of the bestseller 50 Fabulous Gay-Friendly Places to Live and the Writer’s Series, speaks at conferences and teaches Internet self-promotion courses online. Gregory is editor of Queer Collection: Prose & Poetry, Patchwork Path, The Fabulist Flash, and Eighteen Questions, a Q&A series that collects published authors experiences (chosen a “101 Best Website” by Writer’s Digest ). In Las Vegas, he hosts the Writerpreneur Workshops and co-host’s the Writer’s Pen & Grill. Gregory holds a BA in English Literature from Columbia University, New York, and a certificate in Online Teaching and Learning and an MS Ed. from California State University, East Bay.
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By Gregory A. Kompes

Affiliate programs enable people to become marketing channels for each other’s products and services-earning financial rewards for referrals that lead to sales. Widely available online, these programs offer ways to diversify your writing career income streams.

Here are three ways to become an affiliate.

1. Join individual affiliate programs

One of the most recognized affiliate programs is Amazon Associates. It’s free to join and by inserting links with your affiliate code into your newsletter, blog, website, or emails you get credit when someone clicks the link and buys. The nice thing about joining Amazon Associates is that Amazon isn’t just about books. They offer lots of different products through their web portal. A few other examples of individual affiliate programs include Peter Bowerman’s program for his Well Fed book series; Vista Print, and Café Press. As you surf the net, scan the list of links on most product sites and you’ll probably find one that says “Become an Affiliate.”

2. Join an affiliate clearinghouse

If you discover that affiliate marketing is helping you grow your income and you want more options with less paperwork, consider signing up for one of the affiliate clearinghouses. LinkShare and Commission Junction both offer hundreds of affiliate programs from a single location. How it works: you sign up for their program and then choose from their long lists of affiliates. All the sales commissions are combined into one account and you receive a single commission sales check. It’s worth noting that some companies like Walmart do have affiliate programs, but they only offer them through the affiliate clearinghouses.

3. Develop a personal relationship with someone who offers a product or service

Not every company or individual has an affiliate program. If there’s a product or service you feel passionate about promoting, you can contact the individual or company responsible for the product sales and create a mutually beneficial affiliate sales agreement. This may take a little more time and effort than signing up for an established affiliate program, but personal relationships in business are often where the best profits exist.

You can promote your affiliates in many ways. One of the most profitable involves reviewing and recommending the products and services offered by your affiliates in your newsletter, blog and on your website. Within your review or recommendation, include your affiliate link. When your readers click through and make a purchase you receive an affiliate sales credit and later a check for that commission.

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Gregory A. Kompes, author of the bestseller 50 Fabulous Gay-Friendly Places to Live and the Writer’s Series, speaks at conferences and teaches Internet self-promotion courses online. Gregory is editor of Queer Collection: Prose & Poetry, Patchwork Path, The Fabulist Flash, and Eighteen Questions, a Q&A series that collects published authors experiences (chosen a “101 Best Website” by Writer’s Digest ). In Las Vegas, he hosts the Writerpreneur Workshops and co-host’s the Writer’s Pen & Grill. Gregory holds a BA in English Literature from Columbia University, New York, and a certificate in Online Teaching and Learning and an MS Ed. from California State University, East Bay.

By Gregory A. Kompes

By far, the best way to sell books, products and services is to meet your buyers in person. There are three reasons for this:

1.    There’s a strong level of trust that develops immediately when people meet you and respect what you have to say.

2.    Live events are exciting. Enthusiasm creates the impulse to buy.

3.    Frankly, people hate to say no in person.

While you may meet folks in the grocery store lines and have conversations that result in sales, this one-on-one tactic is haphazard and time consuming. A better approach is to create opportunities to speak to people interested in your topic of expertise in large numbers at one time. Live seminars and workshops, either in person or via teleseminar, are the perfect way to reach your niche topic audience.

It’s easy to develop a seminar. The goal of most seminars is to provide help or answer questions that interest your topic audience. Think about the 10 questions you’re most frequently asked about your topic. This is the material that your audience will be most interested in and your answers will form the core of your seminar.

Remember, most folks don’t like to sit through a lecture. Instead, they want to feel like they’re part of the event. Encourage your audience to participate by letting them ask questions and designing exercises that involve individual and team participation.

If you’re not comfortable speaking in public, improve your skills by joining a local Toastmasters or find a professional coach. Two of my coaches are Judi Moreo and Patricia Fripp.

Judi Moreo advises that you be yourself when you speak. Your audience has come to hear and see you because they want the information you have as a topic expert. Patricia Fripp often reminds that the audience wants you to succeed. Audience members want you to do well because when you do that reinforces why they came to see you.

Before you get up in front of a room of strangers to present your new seminar, invite a few friends to be your test audience. Ask them for honest feedback. It’s easier to try something new and stumble with people who care about you.

With your seminar material in place and your speaking skills honed, it’s time to line up speaking opportunities. Start locally, and after you gain some experience, expand regionally. The places you can speak will depend partly on your topic. If you’ve published a book, contact your local library which is always looking for author speakers. Contact your local chamber of commerce; most invite speakers for their meetings. Clubs and organizations related to your niche topic would love to have an expert come and speak to their groups. With these local experiences under your belt, start contacting similar organizations in nearby cities.

While you’ll make sales right after you speak, you’ll also encounter audience members who want more information. Before you speak in person, be sure to have a Website or blog in place. You need somewhere online to send the folks you meet. You can encourage traffic to your site by offering a free, special report to those who join your email list. When folks get there, they’ll be reminded of your expertise and will have another opportunity to buy your books, products and services.

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Gregory A. Kompes, author of the bestseller 50 Fabulous Gay-Friendly Places to Live and the Writer’s Series, speaks at conferences and teaches Internet self-promotion courses online. Gregory is editor of Queer Collection: Prose & Poetry, Patchwork Path, The Fabulist Flash, and Eighteen Questions, a Q&A series that collects published authors experiences (chosen a “101 Best Website” by Writer’s Digest ). In Las Vegas, he hosts the Writerpreneur Workshops and co-host’s the Writer’s Pen & Grill. Gregory holds a BA in English Literature from Columbia University, New York, and a certificate in Online Teaching and Learning and an MS Ed. from California State University, East Bay.

Cross promotion, sometimes called collaborative marketing, is the perfect way to grow your writing career. How does cross promotion work? Two or more people combine their efforts to promote a product or event.

Here’s a nice example. Writers on the Rise’s Christina Katz had a super cross-promotion event in September: The Writer Mama Back to School Daily Giveaway. She held a daily drawing and gave away someone else’s book or product every day for a month. The result: Christina promoted all those give-away authors to her email and blog lists; and each of the authors participating in the giveaway promoted the event to their own blog, newsletter and email followings. Together, they collectively introduced themselves to thousands of people.

One benefit of cross promotion is that everyone involved with the promotion gets access to everyone else’s audience. And, you don’t need to go as big as Christina on your first cross-promotion effort. The Internet makes cross promotion simple and effective. If both you and your cross-promotion partner have email or newsletter lists, you could suggest an advertisement exchange.

Ready for something a little bigger? First, decide what you want to promote. It might be your new book, a teleseminar, class or live event. Next, find a perfect partner match– another author or business with an audience that will find your product or service beneficial. Contact them and propose a cross-promotion event and brainstorm to find the perfect promotion. Finally, promote your event to your email lists, blogs and newsletters.

One of the reasons cross promotion works is trust. The folks who read your blog and sign up for your email list have a relationship with you. They trust you. When you introduce them to new authors and products, they extend their trust for you to what you promote. It’s therefore important to only promote people who are worthy of that trust.

Do you see a trend here? Cross promotion works best when there’s a mutual benefit for everyone involved. Not just you and your cross-promotion partner, but also for the audience you are both trying to reach.

If you’re not ready to go it alone, you might want to combine forces with a larger group to start. If you’re an author, check out Author’s Coalition (AC) at Red Engine Press. They do frequent cross-promotion and collective marketing events that include attending major west coast book fairs. One of my own cross-promotion efforts, LAMOO Books, is in this category, too. The site offers autographed books at a discount and features a different author each week on all the pages. As authors promote these programs, they are also cross promoting the other authors involved. A little effort from each creates a collective marketing landslide.

How can you use cross promotion to build your writing career?

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Gregory A. Kompes, author of the bestseller 50 Fabulous Gay-Friendly Places to Live and the Writer’s Series, speaks at conferences and teaches Internet self-promotion courses online. Gregory is editor of Queer Collection: Prose & Poetry, Patchwork Path, The Fabulist Flash, and Eighteen Questions, a Q&A series that collects published authors experiences (chosen a “101 Best Website” by Writer’s Digest ). In Las Vegas, he hosts the Writerpreneur Workshops and co-host’s the Writer’s Pen & Grill. Gregory holds a BA in English Literature from Columbia University, New York, and a certificate in Online Teaching and Learning and an MS Ed. from California State University, East Bay.

By Gregory A. Kompes 

Living a Writerpreneur life can be overwhelming. Self-employed writers need to wear many hats and yet, there’s still the writing. That’s the core of our career. Other facets of our business that require our attention are marketing, banking, goal setting, correspondence, reading, learning and research. And all of this must be negotiated with the demands of family, recreation and home life.

I used to stress “balance” in life, and I’d strive to give each facet of life and work a little bit of time each day. Ultimately, I realized that’s not realistic. When a writing deadline looms, that takes precedence; when a family member needs attention, they take the lead. Instead of balance, I now strive for harmony. I think of life like a piece of music, where each part is one of the instrumental lines. Sometimes one instrument takes the solo, and at other times it’s just part of the symphony. I have found that this approach is both realistic and sustainable.

How do we find this harmony? I believe in a slow-play approach to marketing and career building. I’m going to be a writer for a long time so I don’t have to do everything all at once. There’s time to build my career a little at a time, by doing one thing a day. During my live Writerpreneur events, I give participants a small wood cube. When you look at a cube, there’s no way to see all its sides at once. We need to turn the cube over again and again to see all its facets. Our careers are the same. We can’t see all of the aspects of them at the same time. While I look at the big picture now and again, each day I focus on a single goal, and take one step toward a positive outcome.

How do I decide what takes the solo? I turn the cube each day on my desk to remind myself that I have this choice. I prioritize my to-do list and break up my day into chunks. Today may be writing 1,000 good words for a deadline. If it’s a marketing day, I may do a little thing (like changing my email signature or adding material to my website) or something big (like developing a piece of a book release media campaign). I’ve also learned to turn off my computer at a reasonable hour each day so I can enjoy my family, pets and social pursuits. By not trying to do everything at once and giving one thing at a time priority and focus I have established harmony in my Writerpreneur life.

Have you flipped your cube today?
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Gregory A. Kompes, author of the bestseller 50 Fabulous Gay-Friendly Places to Live and the Writer’s Series, speaks at conferences and teaches Internet self-promotion courses online. Gregory is editor of Queer Collection: Prose & Poetry, Patchwork Path, The Fabulist Flash, and Eighteen Questions, a Q&A series that collects published authors experiences (chosen a “101 Best Website” by Writer’s Digest ). In Las Vegas, he hosts the Writerpreneur Workshops and co-host’s the Writer’s Pen & Grill. Gregory holds a BA in English Literature from Columbia University, New York, and a certificate in Online Teaching and Learning and an MS Ed. from California State University, East Bay.